MANAGING CRISES BEFORE THEY HAPPEN --- WHAT EVERY EXECUTIVE AND MANAGER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT CRISIS MANAGEMENT by Ian I. Mitroff with Gus Anagnos. American Management Association, 2001INTRODUCTION --- from blurb (Cover)

Human caused crises occur in organizations every day. Any complex organization is susceptible to tragic accidents, human errors, and outright criminal acts. And each one can excalate exponentially, destroying lives and property, damaging reputations --- even overtunring market dominance --- and infiltrating and undermining the well-being of the organization as a whole.

The issue is not IF your organization will suffer a major crisis, but rather HOW, WHEN, and WHY your vulnerability will be exposed --- whether you will be victim or villain!

How can you manage successfully in such a business world? You can choose the kind of "big picture" thinking and practical knowledge in this book!

The book probes the psyche of the organization, describing how the mindset "that it can't happen here" can eventually lead to the breakdown of an entire organizational system because of the lack of "truth-telling."

Managing crises effectively begins with "mechanisms" in place long before the crises occur, since cirisis management is not a separate program but an integral part of the entire management system!

QUOTE (pv)

"...Humans regularly behave in ways they do not well understand, which cause pain to themselves and others, which violate their best understanding of what they want and what they care about!" by Jonathan Lear, from the book Open Minded --- Working Out the Logic of the Soul, Cambridge: harvard University Press, 1998, page 54

PREFACE (pxi-xii)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (pxii)

Continued at end of book

1) Why crises are an inevitable and permanent feature of modern societies (p1-9)

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2) The failure of success (p11-25)

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3) A best practice model (p27-51)

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4) Should we tell the truth? --- the varieties of truth and telling the truth (p53-79)

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5) Assuming responsibility (p81-112)

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6) Detecting weak signals --- making sure that you are the first to get the worst news! (p99-)